Plants & garden shows

Two plant-related questions today, one about what that white flower with three leaves was called (Trillium, one of Michigan's native flowers) and the other was about what can you grow under a black walnut tree. (ANS: not a lot).

Black Walnut trees secrete a poison of some kind. Their roots pretty much kill any vegetation around them, the leaves & the nuts also kill things. Dogs that eat or mouth the walnuts can die from it, as the mold is pretty deadly as well. Moral of the story is, don't plant them if you have dogs around and especially don't plant them near your neighbor's property, because they won't be happy.

Will have a guy come from the Home & Garden show to give me an estimate on my fence replacement. It really needs to come down soon, as it is so rickety, I could kick the boards through. Rosy would be able to get out if she ever thought about it & I would prefer that she not get ideas about breaking through fences & climbing them. He had some nice ones on display, so my fingers are crossed on that one.

Here's a view of Nick & Robbyn van Frankenhuyzen's sleeping cabin on one of their ponds. It is a really cool place. Bet it looks great now with all the greening up that is going on here.

March winds and rain

Hi, sorry it has been a while again. Lots going on, very busy. Work life remains precarious, but the state government has introduced a bill with funding in it for my department. We have some faint hope of survival. And spring is imminent. I know the official date of spring was this Friday, but for me, spring begins when my daffodils begin to bloom.

Rosy is, of course, as blooming as ever. She had her first trip to the vet since her follow up puppy vaccinations and was a silly wild puppy. They took her in the back to take blood from her and she sauntered off without even a look back at me. They all enjoyed her & thought she was beautiful. A balm to this dog-loving heart!

Annie-the-cat, on the other hand, had a terrible time. She's become increasingly frightened with each trip to the vet. Today I asked why her gums & tongue looked so odd and the vet said, "She's holding her breath." Annie was literally turning blue. Poor Annie. She has to go back in for another teeth cleaning and I was hoping my ritual tartar cookies, etc. would help clean her teeth. Not this time. She had white teeth until I gave her Kitty Caviar. I sure wish I had never given her that crap. (ok, cats adore it. But on Annie, it stuck to her teeth and now she has had to go back in for several teeth cleanings since I gave her that stuff. Rats).

May have to investigate a home-visit vet. One of my friends is a substitute vet so I'm going to ask her what she thinks I should or can do. Poor Annie. She's such a good cat. She does not want to hurt anyone, not even puppy Rosy and she feels bad when she scratches someone. But she's terrified out of her wits.

Home & Garden show as a master gardener volunteer this weekend. I've done Thursday & Friday, will do Saturday. It is gorgeous and the gardens they've set up in there are absolutely glorious. If there's one nearby, go. It is great just for the sight, and they do have giveaways and freebies. Like yardsticks. You can never have too many yardsticks in your life, can you?

hectic schedules

Sorry its taken so long to post again. Rosy's Manners I class will start next week on the 17th. She got to go in on Tuesday and get fitted for her next harness. I could still get the old harness on, but it looked way too short for her. This one fits much better & she was galloping around the room very cheerfully, while playing with two large golden retrievers.

She was having a ton of fun & the one boy dog thought having two girl dogs to play with was just so very exciting. Very silly puppies.

She's at 30 pounds, I think. She wriggles so much it is hard to tell. Top weight will probably be between 40-50 pounds. She's at her top height (or at least, she's as tall as Ricky, who is 19 inches at the shoulder) so I wonder if she'll fill out now, rather than grow any taller. We'll see. She's also had a set of tracking lessons & she's doing really well. Now to work on the handler's skills!

As gorgeous as ever, enough so that most of the people at the pet store didn't mind her jumping on them. I do try to stop it, but she's relentless (and wriggly, so it is hard to hold her still). One lady in particular stood way too close and scowled every time Rosy jumped on her. I apologized, but really, she could've given us more room & we would all have been happier. She quite obviously didn't like dogs and was buying food for snakes. So one of those people. Oh well. ;) The picture above is of Rosy in mid-jump.

Time for jumping practice (aka - teaching her not to jump on people).